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In The Bride of Frankenstein, there’s a section where we learn that the doctor that Frankenstein has thrown in with is obsessed with making tiny people. Tod Browning might have taken a page out of the screenplay for The Devil-Doll, a film that is virtually entirely based on the idea of miniature people doing bad things. There are a surprising number of films that feature this idea to the point that there’s a Wikipedia page devoted to films that feature miniature people.
The Devil-Doll starts with a prison break. Marcel (Henry B. Walthall), a mad scientist and Paul Lavond (Lionel Barrymore) escape from Devil’s Island. Marcel wishes to get back to his wife and experimentation while Lavond is looking for revenge. A former banker, he was convicted of robbing his own bank and killing a night watchman, and has served 17 years of a life sentence. However, Lavond is innocent; his partners Coulvet (Robert Greig), Matin (Pedro de Cordoba), and Radin (Arthur Hohl) framed him after stealing the money themselves.
Marcel’s goal as a scientist is to reduce people to one-sixth of their size in an effort to reduce the use of natural resources—think Downsizing, but multiple decades earlier. The process kind of works—things that are reduced in size but are left in a state where they must be controlled and given direction. Marcel dies soon after the escape, which leaves Lavond with Marcel’s widow Malita (Rafaela Ottiano), access to this technology, and a yearning to settle some scores.
Also tossed into the mix is Lavond’s daughter Lorraine (Maureen O’Sullivan). Lorraine is poor, working in a laundry, and is being romanced by taxi driver Toto (Frank Lawton). She resists Toto’s charms, though, because of her shame of her family past. She is convinced of the guilt of her father and is additionally shamed by her mother’s suicide. Because of this, she condemns herself to a life of drudgery. For his part, Paul Lavond works his way back into her life disguised as an old woman who sells incredibly life-like dolls. Naturally, he’s going to use those dolls to exact his revenge.
The Devil-Doll is the sort of movie that’s never going to be anyone’s favorite, but it has a lot going for it. The revenge plot is a good one, especially because the method of revenge enacted by Lavond feels unique, at least for the time. Essentially, one of Marcel’s scientific discoveries is a serum that can paralyze people indefinitely. He uses the shrunken people as a way to get close to his victims before paralyzing them and leaving them in that state. It’s quite inventive.
It's also a movie that has a surprise ending. What feels like it should be the end of the story happens several minutes before the actual end of the film. There’s additional plotlines that aren’t necessarily resolved in the revenge plot, and the final 15 minutes are surprising in the best of ways.
Additionally, while the effects are easy to spot today, they are quite good for the time. The miniaturized people and animals generally look pretty good on screen, even when they are on screen with other actors. It’s obviously a superimposed shot, but for the time, I would imagine that theater goers were amazed by the shots.
It's also a fun showcase for Lionel Barrymore. This was one of his last films before the accident that put him in a wheelchair for his most famous film roles, especially in It’s a Wonderful Life. He spends the bulk of the film in drag as the old woman, and honestly it looks like he’s having a grand time doing so. In fact, the biggest problem I had with the film is the voice that Barrymore uses as the old woman. It’s fine in small bits, but the steady diet of it across the film eventually ends up being grating.
This was fun. It’s always fun to find these obscure films from almost a century ago and see the state of filmmaking at that time. There’s nothing in The Devil-Doll that would frighten anyone today, but that’s a part of the charm of this. A lot of horror movies from this era don’t really age well. They had small budgets and second-rate actors, silly scripts and goofy stories. The Devil-Doll has plenty of silliness in it, but it’s aged surprisingly well. A lot of that is Lionel Barrymore, and a lot of it is that everyone plays it straight.
Why to watch The Devil-Doll: Weird science and revenge and a surprising closing act.
Why not to watch: Lionel Barrymore’s old woman voice.